99% Invisible - Bonus Episode- Avery talks Articles of Interest with Roman

Episode Date: December 15, 2018

Roman talks with Avery about the lessons learned from making Articles of Interest Don’t buy that new piece of clothing and use a bit of that money to support Radiotopia

This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. So this is a little bonus episode of 99% Invisible. And one of the big things we did this year was we released a brand new show inside of a show created and hosted and conceived and reported by Avery Trollman who is here with me in the studio. Yes. And what I want to talk to you about is this was a phenomenon. It was called the fourth best podcast of the year, according to the New Yorker. And so I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the making of it and what you learned

in the process of it, both in terms of the production of it as a show, as a piece of entertainment and information, but also personally how it affected your view of clothing, your view of style, well, that's everything. So first, what was it like to have the show with in a show and how did it feel to be out there as the host? What was it like?

Oh, it's so scary, I don't know. You do it. It's scary, isn't it? It's really scary to have your voice out there, especially in this realm where I didn't know anything about it before. And yeah, there was just so much to synthes especially in this realm where I didn't know anything about it before. Right. And yeah, there was just so much to synthesize in this series.

I've been working on it for so long. Yeah. I learned so much and it really changed the way I dress and the way I shop entirely. Oh, that's amazing. So what do you mean by that? The funny thing is, I think going into the series, I was like, I am a close person. I am a person who loves close. And then after reporting the series, I am a person who hates close. And I am a person. No, no, no, no, no, I'm a person who loves style and I love fashion. Yeah, but clothes

are tricky. Okay, so explain the nuance here that you're speaking of So as we learned in episode number five of articles of interest about denim the process of making clothes right any kind of clothes is really wasteful. It's pretty shocking and we live in a world where it is so easy to just buy new clothes. And that's what I used to do all the time, not even thinking about it. I think a lot of people who don't consider themselves big shoppers, just here and there occasionally just impulsively buy things from the internet, from a store, and maybe sometimes it fits, and sometimes it's your style, and sometimes it's not, and whatever, then you donate it to the goodwill, and that's good for the goodwill.

And that is totally how I lived. You're like, you're like, absolved from the consumerism because you know you're gonna donate it, and close are these imminently, donating objects, but that's not enough. It's no, no, because it's really, most clothes end up in landfill anyway. And Goodwill and Salvation Army, these amazing organizations provide this virtuous outlet for us to just continue getting rid of clothes

and buying new stuff all the time. And we're in the cycle of like, buy, donate, buy, donate, buy, donate, buy, donate, which, you know, it's good to donate your clothes, but it's not the solution for overconsumption. Right. And clothes contribute to 8% of all CO2 emissions in the world. And that's huge. That's a huge output.

And we are just consuming too many new things. And so every designer I talk to is like thinking about this, concerned about this, worried about this, and so many people were just like, you need to stop buying clothes. Yeah. Even the people who make the clothes. Yes. Vivian Westwood herself has this whole campaign, she has these shirts that say, buy less on them. I don't know if she's selling them or not, but on her Twitter, there's a video where she's like, I'm making this new collection, but you have got to help because you mustn't buy

more or stop by less. Like don't buy clothes. That's the tricky thing. As someone who loves fashion and loves style, it's extremely hard to be like, stop buying because it's a really important form of self expression. And as you grow and as you change and as your entire body completely regenerates on a cellular level every 14 years, you need to find new ways to express yourself and the world around you is changing and the weather is changing. Like,

you can't not wear new things. Yeah. So how did you stop the cycle of buying and giving away and buying and giving away? Ironically, my style really paired down in the course of reporting for all of this because I was traveling so much. I lived out of a backpack and I had a uniform. I wore these black overalls on a blue shirt every day and it was extremely embarrassing because I was interviewing these fashion designers consultants, you know, and I was this unshoured mess in these clothes that I've been wearing over and over again. And I recommend everyone do this. It was like going on a fast, where I just had this one outfit. And then I got back to Oakland and suddenly looked at my now enormous

seeming closet. I guess I was just so overwhelmed by the number of clothes I had. I was like, this is a wonderland. And I could just play in this forever. Oh, so you're saying that like it actually helped you not consume or buy new clothes because they were new to you. Because they were new to me and I hadn't worn them in like a month. Totally. And actually, oh, this amazing producer, Eleanor Kagan, has this great little game she likes

to play called the Pantone Challenge. She bought a book of Pantone Color Wheels and she'll go to her closet and try to pick out outfits based on color wheel combinations, just to help her rifle around and dig out new things. So there are all these ways of appreciating what you already have. But, you know, you, but as a thing, you're never,

you will change your body changes. You change attitudes change and style is a thing. I used to have this idea. I used to think I was immune to fashion. And I used to think that fashion people, like get Vogue magazine and obey it like it's the Bible. And when Vogue says, pokedots are in, like you go out and you buy pokedots and you throw out your stripes. And that's not how fashion works. We all pay attention to fashion. But the way it manifests is not from this ruling that comes down from on high.

It's just when you look in your closet and you think, I have nothing to wear. Or when you see someone wearing something new and you're like, that looks kind of interesting. I mean, even in the Hawaiian shirts episode, they were talking about how the cuts of Hawaiian shirts have changed, how the collars were pointed in the 70s and now, you know, they were like kind of boxier in the 90s and they're a little tighter now. Like, fashion's changed, they just do. And we all obey them. But the thing is, it's so easy to just scratch that it's right now, to like, see a new style and be like, I'm going to go online and just get it. And you can really easily. And this was a trap that I had kept falling into over and over again. And the person who changed my life in this regard, I went to a panel about sustainability just to do

some research. This fashion consultant named Annie Gullingsrude. My name is Annie Gullingsrude and I'm a fashion industry consultant. And she was like, you know, look, people say stop buying. It's really hard to just quit. Instead of to shame someone, be like, stop buying. Don't even buy a way to sort of circumvent that, that I guess that addiction or that pull is to buy something that's used. There is this whole new market out there of second-hand clothes. The research is saying that we discard

before a year is up, we buy, and then before a year is up, we discard it. There's this world of like new looking clothes. It's like barely used, it's not used. They don't smell like mothballs, they don't have stains on them, and there are these websites that you can go to. Thread up, posh markets, another one.

The real real is another one. You can shop on them like, as though they are new clothes. You search for your size, you can look for your color, you can look for the price range, and you can just kind of scratch that itch. That need to like scroll and look and see what's out there. Find the brands that you would typically buy, just go on the resell platforms and buy them there instead.

When I see something that I like, I just check one of the second hand stores to see if they have it instead. And this is not a way of buying less, but it is a way of not buying any new material. And it's also a way of really interrogating what I buy instead of just impulsively clicking. It just helps me go, wait a minute,

and it helps me realize, do I really want it? If I do, let's look. And it's not even like digging through bins at the Goodwill. It's not that involved. It's one or two searches and it's helping me kind of wean myself off the habit of just impulsively buying new things. So you can begin to pair down your consumption by buying second hand and then you can also donate second hand and then that sort of creates a little bit more time between a thing being made and a thing being put into a landfill. Totally.

So if you were not going to spend all your money on your clothes, what would you spend your money on if clothes. What would you spend your money on every troffman? What I always spend my money on Roman Mars. Podcasts. Yeah, you donate to the podcast that you love the most, right? Also to the podcast that I work with, I actually donate to the podcast that I work for. No, you don do. It's so sweet. But it's the best. RadioTopia is the best. Totally. And also, you know, like if you're going to, you know, go out in the world and consume thoughtfully, you should know things.

And that's a lot of what we do here, not just in articles of interest, but it's what we do at 99% of visible. And it's a thing that is quite virtuous. It doesn't use a lot of carbon resources. I don't know what the carbon footprint of podcasts are. That'll be interesting. It's not 8%.

So whatever you would spend the next time you're on some site for buying a piece of clothing, just like say, okay, I'm not gonna buy it right now. I'm gonna take that amount of money. I'm gonna fill it in. I'm gonna go to radio say, okay, I'm not going to buy it right now. I'm going to take that amount of money. I'm going to fill it in. I'm going to go to radiotopia.fm, I'm going to hit donate button. I'm going to fill in that amount. That's a great idea.

And then you will save the world a little bit. You'll add more beauty and culture and cool things to the world. And also know that when we do things, the reason why we can do experiments and why we're able to grow and create new shows and create articles of interest and why we can experiment is we have this baseline of support from our listeners. So if you want to be a part of that, you can go to radiotopia.fm and click donate. Yes. And so that would be nice. All right, thanks, Avery. That's great. Thanks, Avery. Alright, thanks, Avery.

That's great. Thanks, Robin.